


keep me in your clouded mind

by cabinfever



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ignis jumps into the Crystal with Noct, M/M, Revelations ensue, lots of hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 05:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13652748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinfever/pseuds/cabinfever
Summary: “You should not be here,” Bahamut tells him.Ignis bares his teeth to the god of war. “But here I am,” he says, “and here I shall stay.”Ignis refuses to let the Crystal steal Noct away.





	keep me in your clouded mind

**Author's Note:**

> written for ignoct week day 6: "Ignis or Noctis grab onto one another as Noctis goes into the Crystal, and they spend the next ten years together".
> 
> title taken from "we sink" by of monsters and men.

Ignis is bruised and beaten, covered in blood and ichor and things he dare not think about, but he’s still standing. He stands beside Gladio and Prompto in the elevator beyond the hangar, trying his best to catch his breath as they ascend to where the Crystal waits. Noct will have gotten to the Crystal by now. He must have. The power of the kings must surely be his, and they will be saved.

And the elevator doors open, and Ignis is hit with a wave of magic and the sound of Noct-

Noct-

Noct, screaming.

He knows this magic. He knows this feeling. This is the pet of the Oracle keeling over at his feet. This is the voice of a god in his ears. This is the sight of a king he hasn’t met yet, dying over and over for the sake of the sun.

Ignis drops his cane, and he runs.

He leaves Gladio and Prompto behind, heedless of any obstacle in his way. He can not afford to stumble now. This is more than pride, more than haste, and more than duty. This is for Noct, and this is for a future he can hardly understand.

Ardyn’s voice seeps through his mind, oily and unavoidable even through the din of Noct’s panicked yells. He spins a terrible story in a rhythm that matches Ignis’s furious footsteps, telling a tale of a king spurned, and of a Crystal most cruel. His voice slows Ignis down until he feels like he’s sprinting through molasses, guided only by the voice that beckons and taunts just as much as it holds him at bay, warping time until all he knows is darkness and panic and the sound of screaming.

The tale ends in a name.

_ Ardyn Lucis Caelum. _

“Noct!” Ignis cries, running faster. It’s just a straight line ahead, and he emerges onto what must be an elevated walkway from the way his steps echo along it. Even without touching the handrails, he knows he’s running dangerously close to a precipice he cannot see. But Noct is at the other end of this path, and Ignis refuses to let him suffer any more than he already has.

One of Noct’s screams solidifies into a name, drawn out in panic and agony. “Ignis!”

He’s closer than Ignis had thought. The world speeds back into focus, and Ignis would recognize the feral energy of the Crystal anywhere; it’s as familiar as the raging heat of the Ring. And Noct’s there, so close, and he sounds muffled, as if he’s falling under water. Ignis is running out of time.

Something whisks out of his way, carrying the scent of carrion and flowers. Ardyn, surely. He doesn’t say anything more than a smug “Oh, I’m afraid you’re late indeed,” and Ignis would bury his daggers in Ardyn’s chest if he could, but nothing matters but Noct. Always Noct.

Ignis stumbles forward towards the fading sound of Noct’s voice, opening his unscarred eye to try to parse out any semblance of light. 

In his ear, Ardyn whispers, “Just there.”

Ignis reaches out.

It’s just the faintest hint of Noct’s hand; his fingers reach out to grasp Ignis’s. Ignis laces their fingers together and squeezes; he cannot hear Noct anymore, but he needs Noct to know that he’s here.

And then-

His hand sinks into warmth, and Ignis chokes around the sudden rush of magic through his veins, and he begs  _ Not again, please don’t hurt me again- _

The Crystal reels him in, tethering him to Noct by their interlocked fingers. It hurts, it  _ hurts,  _ but Ignis will not let go. Not now. 

“Sweet dreams,” Ardyn chuckles as the Crystal lifts Ignis from his feet, tugging him into its depths with an inexorable hunger, tying his fate to the king he refuses to let go.

It’s the last thing Ignis hears.

 

\---

 

It may be a moment, or it may be an eternity, but when Ignis is next aware, he is flying. Or he’s floating, or he’s standing still, or he’s doing all of them at once. All he knows is that there is a curious weightless feeling swooping in his stomach, and the world is nothing but blue around him.

_ Wait. _

It’s blue.

Ignis blinks, and he raises his hands to rub his eyes, and he’s surprised to feel familiar scar tissue beneath his fingers. But despite that, and despite the memory of burning that’s still fresh in Ignis’s mind, his vision has returned by some miracle or another. Ignis laughs for a moment, breathless and in awe, and for a moment he forgets his confusion and savors the fact that he can once more see the colors of the kings’ magic. He’s surrounded by it on all sides. This must be their doing, or the Crystal itself.

A quiet whimper echoes behind him. Ignis hears it in his mind; in his heart; in the deepest reaches of his soul.

He turns.

And Noctis is there, watching him.

Ignis had nearly forgotten how much he loves Noct’s face. Seeing him here, now, soothes him more than he cares to admit. In this disorienting glowing world, Noctis is the only thing that he can hold on to.

“What is this?” he asks. “Where are we?”

Noct looks at him, wide-eyed and panicked. His mouth works silently, but not for lack of sound; instead, he’s just speechless. Ignis has never seen him look quite so unhinged.

“It took us, didn’t it?” Ignis asks quietly, approaching slowly from across the ceaseless crystalline void. “The Crystal?”

Still silent, Noct nods.

Ignis bites his lip. “I see.”

“Ignis,” Noct rasps, and he closes the distance between them. As he draws closer, he reaches out and touches Ignis’s fingers, lacing them together once more. He holds on tightly; Ignis squeezes his fingers as a reassurance as much to himself as it is to Noct. Noct studies him with wide, disbelieving blue eyes. He asks, “Can you see?”

Ignis smiles despite his fear. “I can,” he replies. And then, again, since he never thought he’d be able to say it as long as he lived, he says, “I can see you, Noct.”

_ “Chosen King.” _

The voice rings through their heads with such power that they both cry out. Below them, a hand shatters into existence with the discordant music of steel, larger than Ignis could ever believe possible. It lifts them, catching them in its armored grasp, lifting them as a figure taller than any giant looms before them, clad in draconic plate and mail, spreading wings of greatswords out into the shining void around them.

Bahamut.

Ignis holds on tightly to Noct’s hand and prays that this god will not tear them apart. 

The god of war raises them so that he might look at them, but his eyes fall only on Noctis. Bahamut speaks of the Accursed, and of Providence, and of the destiny of the Chosen. 

Through it all, Ignis can only feel fury. This is the god that bound Noctis to a hopeless fate. This is the god that would dare give Noctis power, only to have it rip him apart from the inside. This is the god that would allow the full might of the Lucii to tear through Noctis in order to lend him their strength. This is the god that forced Ignis to see it all, and the god that ordered him to sacrifice his sight for the gift of a prophecy he hates.

Finally, finally, Bahamut turns his fathomless gaze to Ignis. Ignis stares up into the face of the astral, and he tries to be brave.

“You should not be here,” Bahamut tells him.

Ignis bares his teeth to the god of war. “But here I am,” he says, “and here I shall stay.”

For a moment, he fears that Bahamut will strike him where he stands, and that he will be bound to the Crystal evermore, adding his soul to the legacy of those who have touched the magic of the kings. He’s already presumed to rise above his station once by donning the Ring of the Lucii; he’s not sure if Bahamut will tolerate another act of defiance.

But Bahamut blinks, and he almost nods. It’s not approval; if anything, it’s a tacit warning, but Ignis takes it in stride. Bahamut rumbles, “Enter into reflection by the king’s side, then, that the light of Providence shine within.”

He turns his palm at the same time that he dissolves into crystal, surrounding them in whirling glassy swords before his rumbling voice has even ceased to echo in their hearts.

Ignis squeezes Noct’s fingers to remind him that he’s there, and Noct squeezes back despite the devastation on his face, and it makes things a little more okay.

Later, if there can even be a later in the heart of the Crystal, Ignis looks at Noctis. “Noct,” he says quietly, “There is a truth you must know.”

“A truth?” Noct asks. He’s been quiet; maybe he’s thinking. Ignis can’t quite read him. Not yet, at least. 

“I should have told you, but I hardly understood it myself.”

Ignis tells the truth of the Ring, and of Altissia, and of the prophecy he was forced to learn.

They don’t talk for a long time after that. Instead, they sit side by side in space, parsing through the reality of their future. Ignis doesn’t blame him for fearing death. 

Maybe it’s the span of a heartbeat or a thousand years, but it all passes too quickly. Ignis can’t help but feel like they’re running out of time.

Eventually, they stop using their words. They don’t need them in the Crystal; instead, they rely on the quiet thrum of magic in their bones, and on the way that their thoughts echo through the connection that ties them to their shared pocket of the armiger. The Crystal amplifies that magic to its purest form, and it makes it easier, sometimes, to say that which they fear mentioning aloud.

_ Do you ever wonder-?  _ Ignis asks, but it’s not quite words. He thinks of a world where he could have prevented the fate that Bahamut has forced him to witness. He thinks of the king that Noct will become, and he tries to imagine that king alive on his throne. He thinks of smiling at Noctis and calling him Majesty.  _ Do you- _

_ No,  _ Noct replies, half in words and half in song. His eyes are blue, but they’re darker than the crystalline chill around them.  _ I try not to. _

Ignis isn’t quite sure how Noct knew what he was thinking. All the same, it hurts.

He doesn’t mention it again.

In their later moments, they think about Ardyn.

Accursed, according to Bahamut. Ignis thinks back to their departure, and he remembers what King Regis’s face had looked like, and he thinks of the oily, triumphant voice of Ardyn when he said-

_ Ardyn Lucis Caelum. _

_ I understand,  _ Noct thinks in breathless wonder, and he reaches out for Ignis in body and soul, holding his hand tightly. “I understand,” he repeats aloud, and the Ring on his finger glows white.

Bahamut appears before them, and he catches them in the palm of his immense hand, holding them aloft in endless starlight. “Now you see,” he rumbles, and his voice sounds like the stories Ignis heard in his youth, like battle and the rush of blood in his ears and the distant music of warhorns. “The light waxes full.”

He raises them to meet his impossible eyes, and he stares first at Noctis, and then at Ignis. “Go forth to the kingdom, where the Usurper awaits. Reclaim the throne, and fulfill the calling of the True King.”

The world gleams blue, then white, then black.

Through it all, Ignis holds Noct’s hand.

 

\---

 

Ignis wakes.

He’s sitting somewhere, resting on chilly stone. His entire body feels too heavy, like he’s been flying for years, and that he’s only now come back to the earth. He takes a few breaths to steady himself, reaching out wildly to either side. “Noct?” he calls lowly, surprised at how his voice feels unused in his throat. It sounds different in his own ears.

A hand finds his; fingers twine together, and Noct lifts their joined hands to his lips, kissing them softly. “I’m here,” he murmurs against their hands. “Ignis.”

“Thank the gods,” Ignis breathes, and he stands, pulling Noct with him until they’re standing face to face and he can look into Noct’s eyes. Or he would be, if he could see Noctis. “You’re okay, I hope?”

Noct is silent, but there’s a quiet rustle of his hair against his skin, and Ignis suspects that he’s nodded. Noct seems to realize that the gesture meant nothing. “Ignis,” he tries, and his voice is sad, “can you see?”

“No,” Ignis says, and Noct presses a soft kiss to each of his eyelids. Ignis squeezes his eyes shut afterwards, forbidding himself from crying. He supposes he should have expected this, but it hurts nonetheless. It was a good gift while it lasted.

“You’re older,” Noct tells him quietly. “So am I.”

Ignis reaches out and cups Noct’s chin, smiling just a little bit at the soft rasp of hair against his palm. It’s not much more than stubble, but it’s such a departure from the Noct that Ignis knows that it’s surprising. His jaw is stronger too, and when Ignis reaches up to feel for his hair, that’s longer, framing his face instead of spiking away from his head in a tousled mess. “Would that I could see you,” he tells Noct.

Noct reaches up to catch his wrist, holding his hand close. “You already know,” he says. “Don’t you?”

The visions. Of course. Ignis nods quickly, biting his lip. “Those images, Noct - I try not to use those to remember you.” 

“Oh,” Noct says quietly. “Yeah, of course.” He’s silent for a few moments, and even that stretch of time is deafeningly quiet. They’re touching, but it’s not close enough. After the Crystal, Ignis doesn’t think it ever will be enough. Finally, Noct runs a thumb along his cheek and murmurs, “You’re crying.”

Ignis lets out a weak little laugh. “Am I?”

“Yeah, Specs.”

“I suppose it’s time, then,” Ignis says by way of answer, “if we’re older.” Noct must look just like the king Ignis has known from his dreams. The king who dies.

Noct presses their foreheads together, and they breathe together for a long moment, as close as they can get for now. “It’s time,” he agrees, and his voice cracks. “I wonder how long it’s been.”

“We’ll find out,” Ignis promises. “And we won’t do a thing-”

“Until we find Gladio and Prompto.”

Ignis smiles despite the pain in his heart. Ah, but it’s been so long since he’s heard their voices in anything other than memory. “Right.” He sighs and kisses Noct softly, savoring the touch of him, trying to store away this sensation with an eternity’s worth of memories.

Noct responds in kind, humming into the embrace. He keeps his fingers locked gently around Ignis’s wrist, but his other hand tangles in Ignis’s hair, now overgrown and lain low by ten years in stasis. Ignis tugs him as close as he can, trying in vain to recreate the impossible closeness He can’t let Noct go now; not now that they’re finally free.

But both of them can feel the mark of Bahamut thrumming between them, urging them towards destiny, so Ignis pulls away, though Noct does whine in protest. Ignis keeps him close, though, not at all eager to let him go. He blinks and looks around, trying to discern any source of light through his Ring-blinded eyes. “Where are we?”

“I dunno,” Noct says, and he takes Ignis’s hand and tugs him out towards the open air, where the scent of sea salt blows over to him on a stagnant, cool breeze. “Some sort of island, I think. It’s dark.” He’s silent once more. “The sun’s...gone. And the stars. Something’s wrong, Ignis.”

“Describe it to me,” Ignis murmurs. If they’d been in the Crystal, this would have been easy. The words would have been everywhere and nowhere, and Ignis would have understood. If they were in the Crystal, Ignis would still be able to see. Now, though, everything is silent, like the world is holding its breath.

“A stone prison,” Noct rasps, voice low and full of wonder. “Spires of glass. Swords in the stone.”

Ignis gasps. “Angelgard,” he murmurs reverently. They’re on sacred ground. They should not be here.

In the distance, a dog barks.

“What do we do now?” Noctis asks.

Ignis reaches out blindly for him; he finds Noct’s hand. “What we must,” he replies, though his heart cries out in grief. “Together.”

“Together,” Noctis repeats, and he leads Ignis into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr!](http://www.triplehelix.tumblr.com)


End file.
